The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent, or so the over-quoted adage of John Maynard Keynes goes. Fighting those fickle currents, then, is a Sisyphean task, where bankers and traders lurch from one crisis to another. So it is no surprise that these mercurial money markets make a suitable backdrop for drama: not least in the third season of the BBC’s prestige thriller (yes, thriller) Industry , where calm rarely descends for more than a heartbeat.
Having been fired by Pierpoint in the second series finale, off the back of a fabricated academic transcript, Harper (Myha’la) finds herself exiled to a socially conscious fund in the US. Back in London, Robert (Harry Lawtey) is working on the IPO of an energy firm, Lumi, which is run by a bullish toff, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington – if the knighthood seems improbable, presumably calling the character “Lord Muck” would’ve been too on-the-nose). It’s a deal that also ensnares the attentions of Yasmin ( Marisa Abela ), who is distracted by the fallout of her father’s disgrace, not to mention becoming the focus of tabloid gossip columns, and her boss, Eric (Ken Leung), who is rapidly going off the rails.
But cracks begin to show as Lumi goes public, and the foundations of Muck’s business look shaky. “Everything’s built on nothing!” he laments, as his board closes in. “That’s how you build something!” Given the last season of Industry , broadcast in 2022, dealt with the fallout of Co.